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The Nation (Nairobi)
October 1, 2003
Posted to the web October 1, 2003
Ssemujju I. Nganda And Nabusayi L. Wamoka
Nairobi
Uncle Moody Awori has been making headlines since he was named Kenya's ninth Vice-President last week. As Moody and his supporters were raising dust in celebration, across the border in Uganda, his younger brother, Aggrey Awori, who ran for president unsuccessfully in 2001, was raising a storm too. It was over President Yoweri Museveni's very expensive new grandchild.
Recently, it emerged that Mr Museveni's eldest daughter Natasha Kainembabazi Karugire flew the presidential jet to Germany in August to give birth to her second child.
A team of journalists with The Monitor, Nation's sister publication in Uganda reported that this birth cost $90,000 (Sh6.8m).
The President's Press Secretary, Ms Maria Karooro Okurut, confirmed when The Monitor rang her on September 25, that indeed Natasha flew the GulfStream IV-SP jet to deliver her second child.
"It is true the jet went with the mum," said Karooro.
The daughter and her entourage returned on August 29 aboard British Airways with the baby.
The younger Awori, who's the MP for Samia Bugwe North, is a man with good aviation knowledge, and far more controversial than Uncle Moody. He told The Monitor that it costs $5,000 (Sh375,000) for every hour the jet is on the air. The standard flight time to any European destination from Entebbe Airport is eight hours. The Gulf Stream takes fewer hours, and spent between 12 to 18 hours in the air the day it flew Natasha.
The cost of flying it for 18 hours to Germany and back to Entebbe therefore would be $90,000.
"This doesn't include expenses like flight crew allowances, air and parking fees and accommodation," explains Awori.
Though he came to power on a platform of simplicity and frugality, the Museveni State House is thought to have outstripped previous ones in ostentation. The government built for President Museveni a sauna with piped music, which is alleged to have cost over about Sh30 million.
The news that Natasha became the first First Daughter to fly the presidential jet to Europe to give birth, comes barely two weeks after Parliament was asked to drop its "luxurious life" which costs the taxpayer huge sums of money.
The Monitor could not establish how much per diem was spent on the first family for the 10 days, on the crew and any contingence as State House comptroller Richard Muhinda was not answering his cellphone. Conservative estimates by officials who preferred anonymity, put the figure at about $50,000. Ms Okurut said she had no idea how much was spent.
State House insists no regulations were broken. Ms Okurut said the law provides for such a flight. She said the Presidential Emoluments and Benefits Act provides that each of the four biological or adopted children of the president shall be entitled to one trip abroad per year. She explained that any trip for education or medical purposes shall not be counted as the mandatory one.
Ms Okurut said the law states that such trips shall be at the expense of the State.
The Act further stipulates that when the child travels with either or both parents, the child shall travel first class or by the presidential aircraft.
Natasha had her first child at the private Kololo Hospital in Kampala.
Normal delivery at the referral Mulago Hospital Complex's private wing costs the equivalent of Sh6,000. This means that the money spent on Natasha flying to Germany could pay for 1,200 mothers to deliver at Mulago's private wing.
In the ordinary wing, where the less privileged have their children, the $90,000 spent on Natasha's one baby would give 36,000 mothers an opportunity to have their babies delivered in a hospital.
According to the ministry of Health, malaria is a serious problem in Uganda - as in most of Africa - and currently poses the most significant threat to the health of the population. Malaria currently accounts for 25-40 percent of all outpatient visits at health facilities, 20 percent of hospital admissions, 9-14 percent of inpatient deaths. It kills approximately 79,000 Ugandans every year.
If the money spent on Natasha's single delivery were to be used to buy mosquito nets, the country would purchase up to 19,000 treated nets at a cost of USh9,500 each, according to information from Commercial Marketing Strategies, the distributors of Smartnet. This means that the Germany trip would possibly reduce the figure of death to 60,000.
In northern Uganda, mothers and children live in unhealthy conditions and are exposed to mosquitoes that cause malaria.
President Museveni who allowed his daughter the use of the official Presidential jet.
Commercial Marketing Strategies, in collaboration with the ministry of Health, have subsidised the nets at USh4,000. That means over 45,000 mothers and children in the north and northeast would be safe from malaria.
The money could also be enough to buy 36,000 cheap blankets for the internally displaced people (IDPs) in a country estimated to have 800,000 IDPs in the northern region.
Alternatively, USh180 million would be enough to buy mammogram machines to help detect breast cancer, one of the silent killers of Ugandan mothers. For the last two years, Miss Uganda has been struggling to raise USh100 million for a mammogram to be set up in Mulago Hospital.
Neither State House, President's Office nor President Museveni and the First Lady contributed to the project.
The only mammogram machine in Uganda is found at the elite Kololo Hospital.
Mr Awori said health centres in the country, especially at sub-county level, are without basic facilities. He said 75 percent of Ugandans have no access to the basic needs of life.
Awori said State House spent Sh48m on constructing a gymnasium and Sh1.28m on two tennis courts, which no family member has ever used.
The parliamentary committee on presidential and foreign affairs, while considering the State House/President's Office 2003/4 budget last month, pleaded with the officials to check their "luxurious life".
This followed reports that the First Lady, Mrs Janet Kataha Museveni, had acquired an office block at Sh9.6m, used Sh8m to renovate it and wanted another Sh8m to erect a fence around it.
Mr Awori had told the committee that each of the married Museveni daughters had just acquired a Sh8m Mercedes Benz. "There must be a cut off point at which the taxpayer could finance the president's family," Awori demanded.
There are reports that the daughters also have a Range Rover they use for shopping at Uchumi.
"I see body guards playing with it. It is an amoured vehicle and the Vice-President does not have one," Awori said.
Mr Muhinda told Parliament in August that strong armoured vehicles like the one Museveni uses, cost Sh500 million each.
It is possible that the daughters are 'playing' with the Sh20m or the lesser priced Sh12m Range Rover.
Ms Musumba said in an interview on September 25, that her committee did not want to embarrass the family by telling them in the report to check their lifestyles. "We thought they would receive the message with humility," she said.
She said the daughters have grown up and have their own identities. "They are saved people and I thought they would behave as such. Aren't they saved?" she posed.
Musumba said the lifestyle of the First Family was very expensive for the poor country and pleaded with State House to check itself. Not even the world's best guarded politician - the American president - will let his children take a hike in a presidential jet without him.
According to the Cultural Affairs expert at the American Embassy, Mr Micheal Gonzales, the American President can only be accompanied by his family - children and wife - but the children can not be allowed access to Airforce One on their own.
State House exhausted its Sh1.52 billion 2002/3 budget of 12 month in about six months. The budget was passed by Parliament in August and it was over in February. The treasury gave another Shs 4 billion.
This financial year (2003/4) State House has been given Sh1.8 billion, minister for the Presidency Kirunda Kivejinja told the Musumba committee in August, that it won't be enough. "However, going by the past experience and given the nature of State House impromptu programmes, this too will be insufficient and there will be need for supplementary funding," Kivejinja wrote in the State House 2003 policy statement.
If one trip by one of the president's child costs more than Sh 7.2m, the money will be exhausted soon. And, beyond the State House allocation, there is another Sh1.5 billion budget for the President's Office.
